Last week we began our top ten with an absolute slew of brutality – in fact it probably chimed pretty nicely with the five most distressing films of the year, apart from Green Elephant that is...

Thankfully the top five of the year aren't quite that remorseless, although this shining quintet certainly have their moments. So let's dive right into to the crème de la crème of the movies we watched in 2018...

Our Octo-Boll month certainly brought us to plenty of interesting movies by Uwe Boll, many of which were absolutely brutally bleak. However the exception to that rule was the hilarious Postal, which took all the dark, edgy and base humour from the game and planted it fantastically into movie form. One of those comedies that won't be for everybody but spoke wonderfully to everything I like in humour, pushing the boundaries to deliver moments where you don't really know whether to gasp in shock or laugh out loud.

I’ve got to come clean and say that Giallo doesn’t always float my boat. There are a few notable exceptions, but generally it’s a subgenre I can happily take or leave. So Andreas Marschall’s German Giallo feature came as a pleasant surprise. Very well acted, with some fantastically intense moments – including what was for me probably the longest I ever held my breath during a film – this one has some original and quirky ideas whilst also paying a homage to what has come before it. Well worth a look as a fine slice of modern Giallo for fans of the field.

Not wildly common that a short film scores this highly, so you can be confident that the Korean Human Form left an impression on me. Certainly more subtle than some of the entries here, the movie uses a lot of strange and bizarre imagery to make its point rather than ladling on shock or gore. It’s a clever but slim idea very well delivered, with a genuinely haunting ending, which earns it no 3 in the year’s ratings.

It's that min again. Andreas Marschall emerged as a favourite name in the field for me in 2018, and his anthology horror movie certainly hit all the marks for me. Based loosely on a fascinating real-life cult leader, and divided into three parts based on Indian mythology, this one brings plenty of genuine scares as well as lots of fascinating ideas to the mix, with a very solid framing device running all the way through. A great movie that once again cemented just how good the anthology horror film can be.

I don’t give out top marks cheaply, and in fact I only gave it out once in 2018 – to Jimmy ScreamerClauz’s staggering, horrific, psychedelic magnum opus, When Black Birds Fly. Sometimes there is a sense that a director just knocks something out of the park, absolutely nailing their vision perfectly, and this is the one. I liked Where The Dead Go To Die plenty, but this offering takes all the best elements of that and expands on them whilst adding new, fresh and exciting content. This dystopian nightmare in both black and white and lurid colour is absolutely something to behold – you’ll never look at Heaven quite the same again…

We look forward to lots more reviews in 2019, and thanks to all for reading throughout 2018!
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Yes, it’s that time of year when things turn all retrospective and we start looking back at the year that was. 2018 was certainly a fascinating year for Film Gutter, which gave us the opportunity to actually programme some films for the first time – helping to put together screenings of American Guinea Pig: Song of Solomon, Your Flesh, Your Curse and of course both Nekromantik films with the legendary Jorg Buttgereit in attendance. Those few days remain an absolute highlight of the year for me!

But we watched many, many more films than that, and as always out top ten list refers to films WATCHED in 2018, not necessarily released in 2018. So, without any further ado, here are Film Gutter’s highest commended titles of this particular annum, starting in this part one with numbers 10 up to 6...

The American Guinea Pig series has been growing a serious following since it began, and while Bloodshock probably remains my favourite of the four so far, both this year's installments were very good indeed. Sacrifice was also well among the hardest movies to watch of the year – especially for any male viewer – but it's a fascinating (if slight) story with incredible visual effects. Not for the faint of heart, yet well worth an hour of your time if you can stomach it. ​

This Brazilian short film was absolutely uncompromising, and showed an intriguing triptych of characters effectively haunting a disturbed serial killer, each of them representing some facet of his own personality. It packs in a lot for a short film – in fact the more I reflect on it, the more I wonder if it would have been even better served by being longer – and is performed and delivered with intensity throughout.

One of the most wonderful things about this short film was seeing it on the big screen – the impact of the sound in the cinema was absolutely remarkable, and something that didn't come across quite the same on the small screen. With that said, this story of a woman trying to overcome the aftermath of a sexual assault is plenty impactful in its own right, being both very simple and effective, with only one character for the most part.

I can't compare this to the first one, which I haven't seen as yet, but this one was strange and entertaining in equal measure, driven by a real guessing game of which person would be the one to emerge alive and victorious from the red room. It's not without its flaws, but it's directed and delivered with enough verve to keep you watching and has a heartily unexpected ending to boot as well. Certainly one of the better examples of the wave of splatter movies to come out of Asia.

The third part of the AGP series made a genuine impression in both the extreme horror world and beyond, and rightly so – an excellent exorcism film in its own right, even without the great practical effects, lit up by a fantastic lead performance from Jessica Cameron, who absolutely steals the show in the role of the possessed. As one priest after another fails to exorcise the demon from her, we lead to an even darker conclusion than you might expect for a film in this particular series...

We'll be back next week with our entries from 1-5!


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